Today paper has unlimited uses, but who would have ever thought of attending a show inside a paper theater?
But this is about to come true! In a few days the city of Cardiff in Wales will inaugurate this very original theater. It will be built for the World Stage Design, the international festival taking place in Europe for the first time that hosts exhibitions, installations and performances having a common theme: show design.
The project is signed by Andrew Todd, Parisian architect with a special propensity for eco-sustainability and “non-conventionality”. The paper theater is inspired by the Globe, the historic London theater where William Shakespeare’s company staged his plays. The structure maintains the same circular form, but the materials are, of course, different.
The “bricks” are bales of pressed sheets of old newspapers, magazines and office papers. They are stacked and assembled in a circular form on the scaffolding shelves, creating a 600-mm-thick wall that deflects exterior sound from the performances going on inside. Outside, the “wall” is covered by a layer of cardboard and bamboo that aesthetically completes the facade, constituting a structural support, too. The stage and the stalls are also made of cardboard.
The theater is eco-sustainable also as far as energy consumption is concerned: only stage lighting will be used. The roof is a circus tent material stretched taut over a bamboo frame that reveals an oculus which lets natural light into the theater.
For a few days, even the magical world of the theater will become eco-sustainable!